Imagine you just inherited $160 billion. Now imagine that United
Nations sanctions, unilateral sanctions, and layers of property law
stand between you and your money. Now imagine that most of that money is
tied up in investments and property, so that you can't get to it right
away. Now imagine you're at war.

As Libyan rebels take control of Tripoli, the pressure to release the
frozen assets of Muammar el-Qaddafi's regime is rising. Libya's
Transitional National Council argued on Wednesday that it urgently needs
at least $5 billion of the money to fund stabilization efforts, the Financial Times reported.

According to officials from Germany to Qatar, the estimated $160
billion in frozen assets now belong to the rebels and should be diverted
to them as quickly as possible. The United States wants "to give back
to the Libyan people, managed by the legitimate governing authority, the
Transitional National Council, their own money," State Department
spokeswoman Valerie Nuland told reporters earlier this week.

Easier said than done.

The negotiations over the Qaddafi regime's holdings are especially
complex because so many layers of national and international law are
involved, according to financial sanctions experts who work with the
U.N. They anticipate long, tedious legal struggles.

Let's start with the two layers of sanctions that need to be lifted:
The United Nations Security Council resolution, and then the unilateral
and multilateral sanctions put in place by various U.N. member nations.

To release funds without waiting for U.N. permission would be a
violation of international law. Officials from the United States, United
Kingdom, and Germany have stressed that they would prefer to move
through U.N. channels. But U.N. channels are slow moving.

The United States was granted a humanitarian exemption to the asset
freeze from the U.N. sanctions committee on Thursday, after seeking such
an exemption for weeks. The measure will allow $1.5 billion in
U.S.-held liquid assets to be diverted in aid to Libya, and responds to
requests for aid the TNC itself submitted to Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton earlier this month.

The U.N. resolution, according to those who've seen it, outlines
conditions for the Libyan opposition to meet in order to get the money
that's easiest to transfer: the Libyan government's own cash and
investment portfolios. The resolution will tap funds belonging to the
Central Bank of Libya, the Libyan Investment Authority, the Libyan
Foreign Bank, the Libyan African Investment Portfolio, and the Libyan
National Oil Corporation.

There's no specific reference to bank accounts controlled by Qaddafi.

Lifting the U.N. sanctions, or rewording the U.N. resolution to allow
the transfer of frozen assets to the TNC, would be a complicated
diplomatic and legal issue, according to U.N. diplomats.

"We would prefer for the U.N. Sanctions Committee to take action,"
but if negotiations fail, the U.S. will "find ways to do this
unilaterally," Nuland said this week.

Treasury itself said last month's recognition of the TNC as the
legitimate governing authority in Libya helped pave the way toward
making some of the frozen assets in the United States available to the
Libyan opposition, but legal issues remain.

American sanctions against the Qaddafi regime remain in place, and
all property and interests in property of the Qaddafi regime and others
sanctioned by Treasury remain blocked.

Once banks get the go-ahead to transfer the funds, the real fun
begins. We're talking mixed portfolios of assets, held by a range of
entities from individuals to state agencies. Of the estimated $37
billion held by the United States, only $3 billion is considered liquid.
Most of the money is caught up in securities investments.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle: making the legal argument that the money
no longer belongs to Qaddafi and his cronies, and that it belongs to the
TNC instead. Should the assets go back to the original owners, or to
somebody else? Financial sanctions experts say the transfers will need
to stand up to challenges in a variety of courts around the world.

Nuland called Qaddafi a "criminal" on Wednesday, offering his tyranny as justification for taking his property rights away.

Politically and practically, the fragility of the Transitional National Council is also cause for concern.

"The world will be looking to the TNC to make sure they use this
money for the good of the Libyan people," Nuland said of the proposed
$1.5 billion transfer. She stressed that the United States has
confidence in the interim governing body.

Yet Washington's request to the U.N. betrays a reluctance to transfer
the money to the TNC. Of the $1.5 billion to be transferred, one-third
will go to private companies to pay the TNC's existing nonmilitary fuel
bills, and one-third will go to U.N. aid organizations. The final $500
million will go to a fund set up by the Libya Contact Group of donor
nations for the TNC's use. In order to access the third set of funds,
the TNC will need to bring itemized receipts to the fund's steering
board. It will not be receiving any money upfront.

Notably, even as the TNC requests urgent funds, it's offering a $2 million bounty for Qaddafi himself.

The Qaddafi regime's assets "are not ours" to spend, said Anthony
Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. "Once a government is legally recognized as
inheritor, we have no right to hold the money." The real debate,
Cordesman said, is whether the United Nations and the international
community can negotiate better terms of transfer.

"We will be led by the desires of the Libyan people," Nuland told
reporters, even as she admitted the TNC's request for the frozen assets
will be complicated. Call it the "fog of frozen assets," she joked.

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